http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/ND04Dj02.html

excerpts;    hi-lite mine

 It operates through a "command and control" mechanism similar to that of the old Soviet economy, in which decrees are issued and the market forced to adapt to them, rather than through any serious attempt to calculate the true externalities of an environmental problem and use the price mechanism to reduce them.

The total cost of EPA depredations can only be estimated, but there is one very significant measure of the EPA's potential damage to the US economy. US productivity growth averaged 2.8% annually in the quarter century before 1973, the economic cycle peak immediately after the EPA's formation. In 1973-2011 US productivity growth averaged 1.8%. Had productivity continued at the pre-1973 pace, the US economy would today be 45% larger, a matter of some $7 trillion in annual GDP.